When hanging laundry to dry on a clothes line the use of clothes pins is complicated by the fact that both hands are occupied much of the time and when only one is needed, e.g. to hold an item ready to be pegged, movement is severely limited and it is difficult or impossible to reach any distance for a pin. This makes a basket or similar container for the pins, which generally must rest on the ground, impractical to use as one cannot stoop to it while reaching up to the line and there is the additional inconvenience of having to remember to move it to keep pace with one's own movements along the clothes line.
People adopt many expedients to try to ensure that a pin is within reach when required, such as stuffing pins into pockets or even holding them in the mouth. The latter measure is unsatisfactory for obvious reasons which are exacerbated by changes in the form taken by clothes pins. The traditional wooden pin has been largely superseded by a bifurcated plastics item with a metal spring part and this is uncomfortable as well as unhygienic to place in the mouth. Pockets are generally unsuitably shaped and positioned and there is a risk of damage to the clothing. Perhaps the optimum solution currently known is to keep pins in the pocket of an apron, although aprons are less commonly used than they were and few now on the market have a pocket. Even this expedient, however, is not ideal as one must remember to refill the pocket and its capacity is limited. Using one hand to hold an item of clothing on the line one may grope into the pocket only to find that there are no pins left.
The only previously published document of relevance known to the Applicants at the time of filing this Application is U.S. Pat. No. 3,931,917 (Zellmer) granted on Jan. 13th 1976. This has come to the Applicants' attention by being the sole document listed in the search report of the British Patent Office on their co-pending British Patent Application No. 8502504. The personal materials carrier of Zellmer is a band worn like a sash and having a number of pockets at least some of which open diagonally upwardly and at first sight would be suitable, or could be modified to be suitable, for the purposes of the present invention. However there is no awareness in the Zellmer specification of the particular problems encountered in the use of clothes pins as outlined above and the pockets of Zellmer serve an entirely different purpose. In the case of the personal materials carrier there is no attempt to space any part of the band from the body or clothing of the user since instant accessability to something "pegged" onto the outer edge of a pocket is not envisaged except in the case of a single, transverse pocket 15 which opens upwardly and is specially located. Although not so stated it is positively undesireable that the diagonal pockets should be too open or accessable in case their contents fall out or are too easily stolen, so that it does not matter if the pockets "collapse" over their contents or if their openings are obstructed e.g. by the folds of the garmet over which the band is worn. The series of pockets is interrupted by plain band portions 4 and 6 and it is not envisaged that the band should be rotated around the body to gain access to different pockets. If it were, "unpegged" items would tend to fall out.